Court of Appeal clarifies limits of state immunity in employment claims
Tribunal free to hear claims from administrative staff where duties are not close to sovereign functions.
Background
In the case of Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia (Cultural Bureau) v Alhayali, the claimant worked for the Embassy in London between 2013 and 2018 working in administrative and cultural support roles, preparing reports and assisting with events, but she did not have any decision-making powers. She brought claims in the employment tribunal including discrimination, harassment, victimisation and psychiatric injury.
The Embassy argued that it could not be sued in the tribunal because of state immunity. At an early stage, the tribunal rejected this argument, finding that the claimant’s duties were low-level, supportive and administrative, and therefore not sufficiently connected to the Embassy’s sovereign or governmental functions. The tribunal also held that her psychiatric injury claim could proceed under the personal injury exception.
The Embassy appealed, and the Employment Appeal Tribunal decided the tribunal had been wrong, but the claimant then took her case to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal’s decision
The Court of Appeal held that state immunity did not apply. What matters it the nature of the work actually performed. The claimant’s work was found to be essentially clerical and practical in nature, without decision-making responsibilities or direct involvement in confidential diplomatic functions. On that basis, immunity did not apply and the tribunal could hear her claims.
The Court also confirmed that psychiatric injury can be treated as a form of personal injury, although it raised concerns about using this route as a way of reframing employment disputes. Finally, although the issue of whether the Embassy had “waived” immunity was no longer relevant, the Court expressed unease about situations where a state might appear to accept a tribunal’s jurisdiction only to later reverse its position.
Learning points for employers
The case highlights how tribunals will look closely at the nature of an employee’s actual duties rather than job titles or broad departmental functions when assessing whether certain jurisdictional defences may apply. For most employers, the broader lesson is that employment disputes will usually turn on what the employee really did in practice and how central those duties were to the organisation’s core functions. The decision is also a reminder of the courts’ willingness to take a common-sense view of what constitutes personal injury, including psychiatric harm, in an employment context.